For decades, circuit-based telecommunication networks have provided telecommunication services in the United States and throughout the world. Circuit-based telecommunication networks carry a voice telephone call by maintaining a circuit-based connection between the two participating telephones. Despite their long history of use, circuit-based networks suffer from shortcomings, such as inefficient use of resources and ineffective security. Circuit-based networks also are not well suited for routing information to a plurality of remote locations using the same telephone number. Circuit-based networks also are not well suited for maintaining communication between a plurality of endpoints without special adaptations. To the shortcomings of circuit-based networks, packet-based networks have been developed. Packet-based networks may provide for the efficient and secure transmission of data packets across a network. Instead of establishing a circuit-based connection between two telephones, a packet-based network transmits packets of data between two end points. One of the advantages to packet-based networks is the ability to transmit packets over a shared network without devoting an entire circuit to a single call. A packet-based network efficiently utilizes its resources during non-usage and quiet periods of call because resources are not dedicated to a call when there is no call activity. Packet-based networks may also provide security advantages over circuit-based networks. In a packet-based network, information may be sent in coded packets, which are more difficult to decode than traditional analog signals. Packet-based networks also provide an opportunity to provide a variety of communication types over the network, as the data in a packet may be for any application, such as voice telephony, text messaging, e-mail, streaming video, HTML documents, XML documents, or any other application. The large number of diverse types of communication possible using a packet-based network means that a generic “communication device” capable of conducting at least one type of packet-based communication may be used for communication rather than a telephone limited to one voice telephony. These services may be delivered to a communication device over wire-line or wireless packet-based communication networks.
Packet-based communication offers great potential for efficiently expanding communication capabilities. This expansion may be particularly beneficial to organizations, such as small businesses, that could use limited resources to establish a diverse, efficient, robust and secure packet-based communication system. For example, a packet-based communication system could integrate internal services such as intra-office e-mail, intra-office telephony, voice-mail, photocopying and other internal services with external services such as voice telephony, internet access, facsimile transmission, external e-mail, and other external services. However, the cost of hardware and software to provide such services effectively places the benefits of an integrated packet-based communication system beyond the reach of most small businesses.
The need exists, therefore, for a system and method that allows a communication device to access services through a packet-based network and that allows services to access a specific communication device through a packet-based network with minimal hardware and software requirements for the user.